British broadband ‘still holding back video streaming’

Even the lowest resolution TV or movie streaming is a struggle on the average
broadband connection, a Telegraph analysis has revealed.

Even the lowest resolution TV or movie streaming is a struggle on the average broadband connection, a Telegraph analysis has revealed. Despite progress on increasing average broadband speeds across the UK, rural areas in particular struggle to offer services that are able to cope with streaming video online, accentuating the so-called ‘digital divide’. While urban areas offer typical broadband speeds of 6.9Mbps, which is sufficient to stream the BBC iPlayer, rural areas on equivalent tariffs, usually advertised as ‘Up to 24Mbps’, receive an average of just 3.6Mbps. This leaves hardly any spare capacity when streaming the BBC iPlayer’s required 3.2Mbps.

Despite progress on increasing average broadband speeds across the UK, rural areas in particular struggle to offer services that are able to cope with streaming video online, accentuating the so-called ‘digital divide’.

While urban areas offer typical broadband speeds of 6.9Mbps, which is sufficient to stream the BBC iPlayer, rural areas on equivalent tariffs, usually advertised as ‘Up to 24Mbps’, receive an average of just 3.6Mbps. This leaves hardly any spare capacity when streaming the BBC iPlayer’s required 3.2Mbps.

The BBC has made progress on squeezing its iPlayer into a smaller broadband 'pipe', but British infrastructure remains challenging. The Government has said the UK will have the best broadband network in Europe by 2015.

The rapid growth of TV-on-demand services have contributed to the widespread ‘timeshifting’ of TV viewing. Streaming DVD-quality video, however, requires 10Mbps, while Blu-ray quality would require 40Mbps. Both of these are well above the UK average of 7.6Mbps, even including rural areas.

Virgin Media, whose fibre network is able to offer higher speeds but is only available to half of UK households, primarily in rural areas, said the UK average was still not good enough.

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A spokesman said “Even a 720p HD stream will take nearly 4Mb of bandwidth. If you want broadcast quality, you’ll need a faster connection than the UK average and that’s not taking into account all the other simultaneous demands on your broadband such as smartphones and tablets.”

The spokesman added that video-on-demand was the “sort of usage which is accelerating the need for faster, better broadband”. BT is currently upgrading its network and claims it will soon be able to off 300Mbps connections on-demand in some areas.

Ernest Doku, of comparison site uSwitch.com, said that “Although internet providers are investing millions of pounds in bringing the UK's broadband infrastructure into the 21st Century, the reality is that many parts of Britain, and especially rural areas, are still operating in the broadband dark ages and are digitally isolated due to sluggish speeds and patchy coverage.”